The Revolution Will Not Be Signaled<\/strong>
![\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screen-Shot-2025-03-05-at-2.25.31-PM-680x449.png\"](\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screen-Shot-2025-03-05-at-2.25.31-PM-680x449.png\" "\\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Screen-Shot-2025-03-05-at-2.25.31-PM-680x449.png\\"")
Quelle: #^<\/span>https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2025\/03\/07\/the-revolution-will-not-be-signaled\/<\/a>
March 7, 2025
The Revolution Will Not Be Signaled
The Mapping Project
We are constantly told that the messaging platform Signal is totally secure and benevolent. While Signal may be preferable to the dominant alternatives now, there are serious concerns that organizers should discuss and further study. These include: (1) Signal\u2019s extensive ties to the state and major corporations, (2) Signal\u2019s extractive and anti-democratic corporate model, and (3) Signal\u2019s technical dependence on companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, which could open it up to surveillance or censorship.
Because Signal gets such glowing coverage, these concerns are rarely raised. The common wisdom that Signal is invulnerable gives many people a false sense of security.
Beyond these concerns, we should ask ourselves if the increasing use of tools like Signal harms our abilities to organize and communicate in-person, which can be not only more secure but better for building community and enabling direct action.
The Institutions and People Behind Signal<\/strong>
Signal emerged from Open Whisper Systems, created by cryptographer and entrepreneur Matthew Rosenfeld, better known as \u201cMoxie Marlinspike.\u201d There was no transparency about Open Whisper\u2019s funding. But as previously reported<\/a>, Open Whisper received funding from the US government-sponsored Open Technology Fund (OTF), which emerged<\/a> from Radio Free Asia<\/a>, a Cold War propaganda outlet originally created by the CIA.
Today, OTF is a place where government, academia, and corporations get together to advance US imperial interests, in part through the development and dissemination of digital technologies. It\u2019s done under the banner of \u201cfreedom,\u201d but in more honest moments OTF affiliates admitted that it\u2019s really about \u201cregime change.\u201d<\/a> Last year, for example, OTF received at least $5 million<\/a> from the US government for developing \u201cinnovative methods to reach audiences inside of Cuba.\u201d OTF has also been working with groups in Eastern Europe to create mirrors<\/a> of Russian websites, with US-friendly content, that were subjected to Russian state censorship.
OTF\u2019s Board of Directors<\/a> includes people like William Schneider<\/a>, a former \u201cnational security\u201d advisor to Ronald Reagan who held positions in the Pentagon and State Department. Schneider says that his State Department responsibilities included \u201ccoordination of U.S. foreign economic and military assistance abroad\u201d; he also listed \u201cunconventional warfare\u201d as one of his interests. OTF\u2019s Board also includes Pablo Chavez<\/a>, a former Microsoft and Google employee who advised genocidal Senator John McCain and is affiliated with a think tank<\/a> tied to the military. OTF\u2019s advisory council<\/a> includes academics, representatives from foundations such as the Ford Foundation, and software engineers from Google.
OTF understood that Signal could be useful to US proxy groups, which is why it funded the tool.
Meredith Whittaker, current president of Signal Foundation, served on OTF\u2019s advisory council while she was a Google employee. As a Google employee she also co-founded a think tank called AI Now, housed at New York University, and backed by Microsoft, Google, and the White House under the genocidal Obama administration<\/a>. Whittaker was also an advisor to the Federal Trade Commission under the genocidal Biden administration. Whittaker is a skillful self-promoter who has been profiled<\/a> in<\/a> many<\/a> puff<\/a> pieces<\/a>, contributing to the image of Signal as a noble and flawless project.
Signal Foundation\u2019s Board of Directors reflects the same revolving door between government, elite academia, and corporations found in OTF. Its members include Jay Sullivan, an entrepreneur who worked on \u201cprivacy\u201d for Facebook and was a general manager at Twitter. Signal\u2019s Board also includes Katherine Maher, who was exposed<\/a> for working with the State Department to promote regime change<\/a>. In her work with the imperialist think tank<\/a> Atlantic Council, Maher strategized<\/a> about how \u201cbig tech\u201d companies could win public trust while staying for-profit.
Signal\u2019s Extractive Corporate Model<\/strong>
Signal is run by the Signal Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Much of what is said about Signal comes from the Foundation\u2019s self-congratulatory posts which conceal Signal\u2019s origins and ties to the state<\/a>.
In November 2023, Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker and engineer Joshua Lund published<\/a> a post explaining their organization\u2019s finances. They predicted that by this year (2025) it would cost $50 million per year to run Signal, claiming that this \u201cis very lean compared to other popular messaging apps that don\u2019t respect your privacy.\u201d (As others noted<\/a>, they didn\u2019t mention that Signal was made possible by state funding, and that the drop in state sponsorship left Signal scrambling for money.)
And is Signal\u2019s model actually \u201clean\u201d? The post also failed to mention Signal employees\u2019 enormous salaries.
Signal Foundation\u2019s 2023 tax forms<\/a> show that Meredith Whittaker received an annual salary of $785,271<\/strong> for working 40 hours per week<\/strong> (a raise of ~$588,000 from her previous year\u2019s salary). Below are the salaries for the top 7 highest paid employees, of which the lowest paid makes ~$440,000. The salaries for just these 7 employees totaled $4.24 million<\/strong>, nearly 12% of Signal\u2019s revenue that year. This is one way in which non-profit organizations turn public money (and individual donations) into private wealth. The money doesn\u2019t go to shareholders directly, as in a for-profit corporation, but it still gets to private hands.
![\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-1.jpeg\"](\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-1.jpeg\" "\\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-1.jpeg\\"")
Signal Foundation\u2019s top salaries, from its Form 990 for 2023.<\/em>
Despite claiming to be \u201ctransparent,\u201d Signal Foundation never fully disclosed its funding sources. 501(c)3 organizations don\u2019t have to say where they got their money, but they do have to disclose money they have given to other organizations. A search in other organizations\u2019 tax records revealed that the Musk Foundation gave $2 million to Signal Foundation<\/a> in 2021 (unsurprisingly, Elon Musk tells everyone to \u201cUse Signal\u201d<\/a>). Signal Foundation also received $16 million in 2019 from Fidelity Investments, in addition to money from the foundation of Goldman Sachs, among others.
As with every 501(c)3 organization, all decisions about Signal are made by Signal Foundation\u2019s leadership and its board. This centralized model is unaccountable to the communities Signal claims to be serving. But it\u2019s a good way to raise a lot of money, get tax-deductible donations from billionaires and their reputation-laundering entities, and hand out big salaries.
Signal Depends on Companies That Are Destroying the World<\/strong>
Recent tax forms also show the large sums Signal pays to the major companies who are destroying the world. In one year, it paid $2.29M to Amazon for hosting services, $1.86M to Google (also for hosting), and $1.38M to Microsoft (also hosting), among other companies. All these companies service the US government and military, police forces, and also the zionist entity (both before and through the ongoing genocide in Palestine). Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are also major<\/a> polluters<\/a> that damage the earth, waste water<\/a>, and feed on exploited labor<\/a>.
Does this model deserve our support? Is it sustainable? And what will happen if these companies decide they no longer want Signal as a customer?
These dependencies also make Signal vulnerable to surveillance. While Signal uses encryption, metadata about users is still stored<\/a> on those companies\u2019 servers.
This metadata could be useful to the state, which Signal has chosen to openly cooperate with. In April 2021, Signal provided information<\/a> about the last time that a phone number that the authorities were interested in connected to Signal\u2019s servers. They have also provided the dates and times in which accounts were created. In complying with these requests, Signal disclosed potentially revealing information. For instance, in August 2024, it told the state which<\/a> of several phone numbers were associated with Signal accounts, and provided the associated metadata (time of creation and last login to Signal servers).
Signal\u2019s public disclosures<\/a> of these communications are filled with glib reassurances (\u201cSignal still knows nothing about you, but inexplicably the government continues to ask\u201d) and bad jokes about \u201cbig brother.\u201d Yet Signal is clearly complying and giving non-trivial information, even if the details of how it is used are not yet clear.
Signal Is an Asset to the State<\/strong>
Signal is serving state interests, as intended by sponsors. In October 2024, at one of the New York Times\u2019 gathering of elites<\/a>, Rushan Abbas posed for a photo with Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker and publicly thanked Signal<\/a>: \u201cWe are grateful for the secure space Signal provides for free expression, allowing human rights defenders, journalists, and dissidents to have their voices heard without fear of surveillance or censorship.\u201d Although presented by Western media as a grassroots \u201chuman rights activist\u201d fighting for Uyghurs, Abbas<\/a> works closely<\/a> with the Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and Defense Department. She was part<\/a> of the Bush administration\u2019s \u201cWar on Terror\u201d \u2013 even working in the Guantanamo Bay prison as a translator\/interrogator (while employed by the weapons developer L3 Technologies<\/a>). Abbas spreads Cold War 2.0 propaganda<\/a> through Radio Free Asia (once her employer), the CIA-made project that created OTF, one of Signal\u2019s sponsors.
![\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-2.png\"](\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-2.png\" "\\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-2.png\\"")
Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker (left)<\/em> with state operative Rushan Abbas<\/em><\/a> i<\/a>, at the 2024 Athens Democracy Forum (run in collaboration with the New York Times).[\/i]
Since Signal is run by people linked to Google, it also collaborates with the company to promote US imperialist interests.
Last month, Google\u2019s \u201cThreat Intelligence Group\u201d published an extensive post about a method supposedly used by Russian government-aligned actors to gain access to Signal accounts<\/a> (through Signal\u2019s \u201clinked device\u201d feature). Google was alarmed that the method might have been used to compromise Signal accounts belonging to Ukrainian resistance factions, which the US government and weapons industry support. The post gave a detailed account of the vulnerability, with example code, and said it has been fixed in Google\u2019s Android app store. The post also made clear that Google and Signal are working together: \u201cWe are grateful to the team at Signal for their close partnership in investigating this activity.\u201d (It\u2019s not the first time Signal partnered<\/a> with Google.)![\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-3.jpeg\"](\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-3.jpeg\" "\\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/word-image-356430-3.jpeg\\"")
Google\u2019s \u201cThreat Intelligence Group\u201d<\/em> collaborating with Signal<\/em><\/a> to fix a vulnerability in the app that they claim was used by Russian state-aligned agents against Ukrainian factions.<\/em>
Can we imagine a similar situation where Google and Signal would rush to the aid of, say, Hamas or other Palestinian resistance groups, if these groups had uncovered a bug in Signal that would have allowed the zionist entity to snoop on them? Would Google\u2019s \u201cThreat Intelligence Group\u201d publish a detailed post about the problem, with screenshots in Arabic, like it did for Ukraine? The Palestinian resistance doesn\u2019t need the help \u2013 it built its own closed communications network, knowing well that Western digital platforms are compromised \u2013 but the hypothetical reminds us of Signal\u2019s allegiances.
Signal\u2019s close relationship with Google is also troubling because Google is known to engage in mass surveillance. Google, like other major companies such as Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, collaborated with the NSA (through the PRISM program<\/a>), giving the state access to its servers. The company has many connections<\/a> to the government and to spy agencies like the CIA.
It\u2019s telling that Signal could have reduced its dependence<\/a> on Google, but chose not to. For example, despite requests<\/a> from many users, Signal hasn\u2019t supported the inclusion of its app on F-Droid, the open source and free software alternative to Google\u2019s Play Store for Android. Signal\u2019s official instructions direct everyone to Google Play Store to download the Signal app. Could this be because Signal doesn\u2019t want to anger Google, as F-Droid goes against Google\u2019s business interests?
A False Sense of Security<\/strong>
We are told that Signal is secure because it\u2019s open source and because it uses \u201cend-to-end encryption.\u201d This narrative gives users a false sense of security. It overlooks the problem with the basic model used by Signal and other digital messaging platforms.
All digital activities take place in an environment \u2013 like a mobile phone or a computer \u2013 that is already highly insecure. In other words, there are many steps<\/a> before and after<\/a> encryption where some part of the software or hardware can be compromised. For instance, if a Signal user has notifications turned on their Android or iPhone, those messages (with their contents, by default) will be carried on Google\u2019s or Apple\u2019s channels; the fact that the messages were encrypted when sent is irrelevant. Similarly, Signal will by default log your audio calls (time and name of the account you spoke with) in the \u201cRecent calls\u201d section of your device, say an iPhone. This information will then be available to Apple and to anyone with access to data on your device, without even needing to open Signal. And if someone recorded keystrokes<\/a> on a device (as the NSA has previously done), \u201cend-to-end encryption\u201d will provide no protection.
For \u201cend-to-end encryption\u201d to actually afford some privacy, there are additional precautions<\/a> that must be taken to harden phones and other devices against data leaks before or after the message is encrypted. Signal is not set up by default to include these measures, some of which require more extensive technical knowledge. For Android phones, Signal is only officially supported through Googleplay, requiring most users to register their phones with Google and connect to services that regularly collect data on users and potentially share!=+=+=!IGl0IHdpdGggcG9saWNl=+!=+!=<\/a>.
Many people also seem to forget how easily the state can get full physical access to someone\u2019s phone. Many also underestimate the \u201cnetwork effect\u201d where one compromised device can put hundreds of people\u2019s political activities and connections in the hands of cops.
Police are particularly interested in capturing cellphones during raids and arrests because phones carry significant amounts of data on their users, including text conversations, photographs, call logs, and lists of contacts. Police can seize phones and extract their content using tools made by the Israeli company Cellebrite<\/a>. Many police departments and US agencies (including ICE<\/a> and the FBI<\/a>) have contracts with Cellebrite<\/a>, and court cases have made clear that the company\u2019s tools can extract data from confiscated phones.
Signal responded to a statement from Cellebrite<\/a> in 2020 announcing that it had \u201cbroken\u201d Signal\u2019s encryption by debunking the claim: the app doesn\u2019t protect contents of chats from being read if a phone is unlocked; apparently, Cellebrite had only succeeded in unlocking a phone with Signal on it. But it\u2019s important for users of Signal to know that if a phone is seized by police, tools such as Cellebrite\u2019s can be used in many cases to extract one\u2019s Signal chats (for example, if the app can be opened or if its contents were sent through unencrypted channels such as notifications) along with the rest of the phone\u2019s contents. Since Signal is heavily used by activists \u2013 who frequently use Signal to communicate during protests \u2013 this possibility is not remote. The threat it poses to activists should be emphasized, not minimized.
This applies to all apps, not just Signal, of course. But Signal\u2019s great PR gives people the wrong impression<\/a> that because the app uses \u201cend-to-end encryption,\u201d you shouldn\u2019t worry. Any platform that projects invulnerability will be encouraging bad practice (such as bringing devices to protests and actions) and potentially creating a \u201choney pot.\u201d
Questions for Our Movements<\/strong>
Signal\u2019s increasing use in organizing spaces raises some crucial questions for our movements.
Is it desirable to have one central and wasteful US-based organization \u2013 connected to the state, dependent on corporations like Google and Amazon, and costing $50 million per year \u2013 run our digital communications platform?
What are the alternatives? What are different infrastructures that don\u2019t use centralized data collection? How could these infrastructures be run in a more decentralized fashion, without the corrupt, corporate model of a non-profit? Is it possible to make this infrastructure ecologically sustainable, given the ecological harms created by large servers and data storage?
More fundamentally, we should examine the impact that Signal and similar tools have on our modes of organizing. When do the negative effects of these tools outweigh the benefits?
Like other social networking platforms, Signal is designed to connect people digitally through groups. Its architecture seems to encourage the building of large lists and networks for activists. We know of cases where chats have been built including thousands of participants. By creating an app for this, Signal has encouraged activists to communicate through \u2013 and potentially store \u2013 large networks and chats on their phones.
But phones are particularly vulnerable to surveillance, since they are easily tied to an identity and allow for the tracking of movements and interactions. Even if Signal chats are protected from remote surveillance, phones can be easily captured and seized by police if taken to protests, actions, or carried across borders. Depending on what precautions people have taken, one compromised phone can reveal entire activist networks. It\u2019s worth emphasizing that to suppress organizing, the state doesn\u2019t necessarily need your deepest secrets, but things like where you\u2019ve been and who you talk to regularly.
Beyond the surveillance concerns, most of us have felt the alienating effect of the preoccupation with these apps. They can make organizing feel like a bureaucratic digital management job (while leaving a trail of \u201cSignal Intelligence\u201d for the authorities). An in-person meeting, when possible, is always going to be better \u2013 and often more secure \u2013 than starting yet another Signal group. The Covid pandemic has increased the alienation capitalism feeds on, including the retreat into apps, and it is essential to rebuild the culture of face-to-face meetings.
Radical action requires relationships. What ways of communicating would be best for building community, deepening our relationships to one another, and grounding us in a sense of place? Sometimes \u201clow tech\u201d methods such as phone trees can be better for all these things than impersonal digital messaging.
We should consider all these factors when using Signal, and critically discuss the political forces that produced this tool. We shouldn\u2019t let the discussion be guided by technologists or the elite activists of the nonprofit-industrial complex, but by what our movements need to build the community power that can topple imperialist institutions.
Further reading about Signal<\/strong>
\u2013<\/strong> Signal Configuration and Hardening Guide<\/a>: how to make Signal more secure than the default settings.
\u2013 Mobile Phone Security for Activists and Agitators<\/a>
\u2013 \u201cSignal is a government op<\/a>\u201d (2021)
\u2013 \u201cSignal Facing Collapse After CIA Cuts Funding<\/a>\u201d (2023)
\u2013 \u201cDefending Privacy in the Surveillance State and Fragmenting Internet<\/a>\u201d (2024)<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>","width":640,"height":426}
Quelle: #^<\/span>https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2025\/03\/07\/the-revolution-will-not-be-signaled\/<\/a>
March 7, 2025
The Revolution Will Not Be Signaled
The Mapping Project
We are constantly told that the messaging platform Signal is totally secure and benevolent. While Signal may be preferable to the dominant alternatives now, there are serious concerns that organizers should discuss and further study. These include: (1) Signal\u2019s extensive ties to the state and major corporations, (2) Signal\u2019s extractive and anti-democratic corporate model, and (3) Signal\u2019s technical dependence on companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, which could open it up to surveillance or censorship.
Because Signal gets such glowing coverage, these concerns are rarely raised. The common wisdom that Signal is invulnerable gives many people a false sense of security.
Beyond these concerns, we should ask ourselves if the increasing use of tools like Signal harms our abilities to organize and communicate in-person, which can be not only more secure but better for building community and enabling direct action.
The Institutions and People Behind Signal<\/strong>
Signal emerged from Open Whisper Systems, created by cryptographer and entrepreneur Matthew Rosenfeld, better known as \u201cMoxie Marlinspike.\u201d There was no transparency about Open Whisper\u2019s funding. But as previously reported<\/a>, Open Whisper received funding from the US government-sponsored Open Technology Fund (OTF), which emerged<\/a> from Radio Free Asia<\/a>, a Cold War propaganda outlet originally created by the CIA.
Today, OTF is a place where government, academia, and corporations get together to advance US imperial interests, in part through the development and dissemination of digital technologies. It\u2019s done under the banner of \u201cfreedom,\u201d but in more honest moments OTF affiliates admitted that it\u2019s really about \u201cregime change.\u201d<\/a> Last year, for example, OTF received at least $5 million<\/a> from the US government for developing \u201cinnovative methods to reach audiences inside of Cuba.\u201d OTF has also been working with groups in Eastern Europe to create mirrors<\/a> of Russian websites, with US-friendly content, that were subjected to Russian state censorship.
OTF\u2019s Board of Directors<\/a> includes people like William Schneider<\/a>, a former \u201cnational security\u201d advisor to Ronald Reagan who held positions in the Pentagon and State Department. Schneider says that his State Department responsibilities included \u201ccoordination of U.S. foreign economic and military assistance abroad\u201d; he also listed \u201cunconventional warfare\u201d as one of his interests. OTF\u2019s Board also includes Pablo Chavez<\/a>, a former Microsoft and Google employee who advised genocidal Senator John McCain and is affiliated with a think tank<\/a> tied to the military. OTF\u2019s advisory council<\/a> includes academics, representatives from foundations such as the Ford Foundation, and software engineers from Google.
OTF understood that Signal could be useful to US proxy groups, which is why it funded the tool.
Meredith Whittaker, current president of Signal Foundation, served on OTF\u2019s advisory council while she was a Google employee. As a Google employee she also co-founded a think tank called AI Now, housed at New York University, and backed by Microsoft, Google, and the White House under the genocidal Obama administration<\/a>. Whittaker was also an advisor to the Federal Trade Commission under the genocidal Biden administration. Whittaker is a skillful self-promoter who has been profiled<\/a> in<\/a> many<\/a> puff<\/a> pieces<\/a>, contributing to the image of Signal as a noble and flawless project.
Signal Foundation\u2019s Board of Directors reflects the same revolving door between government, elite academia, and corporations found in OTF. Its members include Jay Sullivan, an entrepreneur who worked on \u201cprivacy\u201d for Facebook and was a general manager at Twitter. Signal\u2019s Board also includes Katherine Maher, who was exposed<\/a> for working with the State Department to promote regime change<\/a>. In her work with the imperialist think tank<\/a> Atlantic Council, Maher strategized<\/a> about how \u201cbig tech\u201d companies could win public trust while staying for-profit.
Signal\u2019s Extractive Corporate Model<\/strong>
Signal is run by the Signal Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Much of what is said about Signal comes from the Foundation\u2019s self-congratulatory posts which conceal Signal\u2019s origins and ties to the state<\/a>.
In November 2023, Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker and engineer Joshua Lund published<\/a> a post explaining their organization\u2019s finances. They predicted that by this year (2025) it would cost $50 million per year to run Signal, claiming that this \u201cis very lean compared to other popular messaging apps that don\u2019t respect your privacy.\u201d (As others noted<\/a>, they didn\u2019t mention that Signal was made possible by state funding, and that the drop in state sponsorship left Signal scrambling for money.)
And is Signal\u2019s model actually \u201clean\u201d? The post also failed to mention Signal employees\u2019 enormous salaries.
Signal Foundation\u2019s 2023 tax forms<\/a> show that Meredith Whittaker received an annual salary of $785,271<\/strong> for working 40 hours per week<\/strong> (a raise of ~$588,000 from her previous year\u2019s salary). Below are the salaries for the top 7 highest paid employees, of which the lowest paid makes ~$440,000. The salaries for just these 7 employees totaled $4.24 million<\/strong>, nearly 12% of Signal\u2019s revenue that year. This is one way in which non-profit organizations turn public money (and individual donations) into private wealth. The money doesn\u2019t go to shareholders directly, as in a for-profit corporation, but it still gets to private hands.
Signal Foundation\u2019s top salaries, from its Form 990 for 2023.<\/em>
Despite claiming to be \u201ctransparent,\u201d Signal Foundation never fully disclosed its funding sources. 501(c)3 organizations don\u2019t have to say where they got their money, but they do have to disclose money they have given to other organizations. A search in other organizations\u2019 tax records revealed that the Musk Foundation gave $2 million to Signal Foundation<\/a> in 2021 (unsurprisingly, Elon Musk tells everyone to \u201cUse Signal\u201d<\/a>). Signal Foundation also received $16 million in 2019 from Fidelity Investments, in addition to money from the foundation of Goldman Sachs, among others.
As with every 501(c)3 organization, all decisions about Signal are made by Signal Foundation\u2019s leadership and its board. This centralized model is unaccountable to the communities Signal claims to be serving. But it\u2019s a good way to raise a lot of money, get tax-deductible donations from billionaires and their reputation-laundering entities, and hand out big salaries.
Signal Depends on Companies That Are Destroying the World<\/strong>
Recent tax forms also show the large sums Signal pays to the major companies who are destroying the world. In one year, it paid $2.29M to Amazon for hosting services, $1.86M to Google (also for hosting), and $1.38M to Microsoft (also hosting), among other companies. All these companies service the US government and military, police forces, and also the zionist entity (both before and through the ongoing genocide in Palestine). Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are also major<\/a> polluters<\/a> that damage the earth, waste water<\/a>, and feed on exploited labor<\/a>.
Does this model deserve our support? Is it sustainable? And what will happen if these companies decide they no longer want Signal as a customer?
These dependencies also make Signal vulnerable to surveillance. While Signal uses encryption, metadata about users is still stored<\/a> on those companies\u2019 servers.
This metadata could be useful to the state, which Signal has chosen to openly cooperate with. In April 2021, Signal provided information<\/a> about the last time that a phone number that the authorities were interested in connected to Signal\u2019s servers. They have also provided the dates and times in which accounts were created. In complying with these requests, Signal disclosed potentially revealing information. For instance, in August 2024, it told the state which<\/a> of several phone numbers were associated with Signal accounts, and provided the associated metadata (time of creation and last login to Signal servers).
Signal\u2019s public disclosures<\/a> of these communications are filled with glib reassurances (\u201cSignal still knows nothing about you, but inexplicably the government continues to ask\u201d) and bad jokes about \u201cbig brother.\u201d Yet Signal is clearly complying and giving non-trivial information, even if the details of how it is used are not yet clear.
Signal Is an Asset to the State<\/strong>
Signal is serving state interests, as intended by sponsors. In October 2024, at one of the New York Times\u2019 gathering of elites<\/a>, Rushan Abbas posed for a photo with Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker and publicly thanked Signal<\/a>: \u201cWe are grateful for the secure space Signal provides for free expression, allowing human rights defenders, journalists, and dissidents to have their voices heard without fear of surveillance or censorship.\u201d Although presented by Western media as a grassroots \u201chuman rights activist\u201d fighting for Uyghurs, Abbas<\/a> works closely<\/a> with the Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and Defense Department. She was part<\/a> of the Bush administration\u2019s \u201cWar on Terror\u201d \u2013 even working in the Guantanamo Bay prison as a translator\/interrogator (while employed by the weapons developer L3 Technologies<\/a>). Abbas spreads Cold War 2.0 propaganda<\/a> through Radio Free Asia (once her employer), the CIA-made project that created OTF, one of Signal\u2019s sponsors.
Signal Foundation President Meredith Whittaker (left)<\/em> with state operative Rushan Abbas<\/em><\/a> i<\/a>, at the 2024 Athens Democracy Forum (run in collaboration with the New York Times).[\/i]
Since Signal is run by people linked to Google, it also collaborates with the company to promote US imperialist interests.
Last month, Google\u2019s \u201cThreat Intelligence Group\u201d published an extensive post about a method supposedly used by Russian government-aligned actors to gain access to Signal accounts<\/a> (through Signal\u2019s \u201clinked device\u201d feature). Google was alarmed that the method might have been used to compromise Signal accounts belonging to Ukrainian resistance factions, which the US government and weapons industry support. The post gave a detailed account of the vulnerability, with example code, and said it has been fixed in Google\u2019s Android app store. The post also made clear that Google and Signal are working together: \u201cWe are grateful to the team at Signal for their close partnership in investigating this activity.\u201d (It\u2019s not the first time Signal partnered<\/a> with Google.)
Google\u2019s \u201cThreat Intelligence Group\u201d<\/em> collaborating with Signal<\/em><\/a> to fix a vulnerability in the app that they claim was used by Russian state-aligned agents against Ukrainian factions.<\/em>
Can we imagine a similar situation where Google and Signal would rush to the aid of, say, Hamas or other Palestinian resistance groups, if these groups had uncovered a bug in Signal that would have allowed the zionist entity to snoop on them? Would Google\u2019s \u201cThreat Intelligence Group\u201d publish a detailed post about the problem, with screenshots in Arabic, like it did for Ukraine? The Palestinian resistance doesn\u2019t need the help \u2013 it built its own closed communications network, knowing well that Western digital platforms are compromised \u2013 but the hypothetical reminds us of Signal\u2019s allegiances.
Signal\u2019s close relationship with Google is also troubling because Google is known to engage in mass surveillance. Google, like other major companies such as Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft, collaborated with the NSA (through the PRISM program<\/a>), giving the state access to its servers. The company has many connections<\/a> to the government and to spy agencies like the CIA.
It\u2019s telling that Signal could have reduced its dependence<\/a> on Google, but chose not to. For example, despite requests<\/a> from many users, Signal hasn\u2019t supported the inclusion of its app on F-Droid, the open source and free software alternative to Google\u2019s Play Store for Android. Signal\u2019s official instructions direct everyone to Google Play Store to download the Signal app. Could this be because Signal doesn\u2019t want to anger Google, as F-Droid goes against Google\u2019s business interests?
A False Sense of Security<\/strong>
We are told that Signal is secure because it\u2019s open source and because it uses \u201cend-to-end encryption.\u201d This narrative gives users a false sense of security. It overlooks the problem with the basic model used by Signal and other digital messaging platforms.
All digital activities take place in an environment \u2013 like a mobile phone or a computer \u2013 that is already highly insecure. In other words, there are many steps<\/a> before and after<\/a> encryption where some part of the software or hardware can be compromised. For instance, if a Signal user has notifications turned on their Android or iPhone, those messages (with their contents, by default) will be carried on Google\u2019s or Apple\u2019s channels; the fact that the messages were encrypted when sent is irrelevant. Similarly, Signal will by default log your audio calls (time and name of the account you spoke with) in the \u201cRecent calls\u201d section of your device, say an iPhone. This information will then be available to Apple and to anyone with access to data on your device, without even needing to open Signal. And if someone recorded keystrokes<\/a> on a device (as the NSA has previously done), \u201cend-to-end encryption\u201d will provide no protection.
For \u201cend-to-end encryption\u201d to actually afford some privacy, there are additional precautions<\/a> that must be taken to harden phones and other devices against data leaks before or after the message is encrypted. Signal is not set up by default to include these measures, some of which require more extensive technical knowledge. For Android phones, Signal is only officially supported through Googleplay, requiring most users to register their phones with Google and connect to services that regularly collect data on users and potentially share!=+=+=!IGl0IHdpdGggcG9saWNl=+!=+!=<\/a>.
Many people also seem to forget how easily the state can get full physical access to someone\u2019s phone. Many also underestimate the \u201cnetwork effect\u201d where one compromised device can put hundreds of people\u2019s political activities and connections in the hands of cops.
Police are particularly interested in capturing cellphones during raids and arrests because phones carry significant amounts of data on their users, including text conversations, photographs, call logs, and lists of contacts. Police can seize phones and extract their content using tools made by the Israeli company Cellebrite<\/a>. Many police departments and US agencies (including ICE<\/a> and the FBI<\/a>) have contracts with Cellebrite<\/a>, and court cases have made clear that the company\u2019s tools can extract data from confiscated phones.
Signal responded to a statement from Cellebrite<\/a> in 2020 announcing that it had \u201cbroken\u201d Signal\u2019s encryption by debunking the claim: the app doesn\u2019t protect contents of chats from being read if a phone is unlocked; apparently, Cellebrite had only succeeded in unlocking a phone with Signal on it. But it\u2019s important for users of Signal to know that if a phone is seized by police, tools such as Cellebrite\u2019s can be used in many cases to extract one\u2019s Signal chats (for example, if the app can be opened or if its contents were sent through unencrypted channels such as notifications) along with the rest of the phone\u2019s contents. Since Signal is heavily used by activists \u2013 who frequently use Signal to communicate during protests \u2013 this possibility is not remote. The threat it poses to activists should be emphasized, not minimized.
This applies to all apps, not just Signal, of course. But Signal\u2019s great PR gives people the wrong impression<\/a> that because the app uses \u201cend-to-end encryption,\u201d you shouldn\u2019t worry. Any platform that projects invulnerability will be encouraging bad practice (such as bringing devices to protests and actions) and potentially creating a \u201choney pot.\u201d
Questions for Our Movements<\/strong>
Signal\u2019s increasing use in organizing spaces raises some crucial questions for our movements.
Is it desirable to have one central and wasteful US-based organization \u2013 connected to the state, dependent on corporations like Google and Amazon, and costing $50 million per year \u2013 run our digital communications platform?
What are the alternatives? What are different infrastructures that don\u2019t use centralized data collection? How could these infrastructures be run in a more decentralized fashion, without the corrupt, corporate model of a non-profit? Is it possible to make this infrastructure ecologically sustainable, given the ecological harms created by large servers and data storage?
More fundamentally, we should examine the impact that Signal and similar tools have on our modes of organizing. When do the negative effects of these tools outweigh the benefits?
Like other social networking platforms, Signal is designed to connect people digitally through groups. Its architecture seems to encourage the building of large lists and networks for activists. We know of cases where chats have been built including thousands of participants. By creating an app for this, Signal has encouraged activists to communicate through \u2013 and potentially store \u2013 large networks and chats on their phones.
But phones are particularly vulnerable to surveillance, since they are easily tied to an identity and allow for the tracking of movements and interactions. Even if Signal chats are protected from remote surveillance, phones can be easily captured and seized by police if taken to protests, actions, or carried across borders. Depending on what precautions people have taken, one compromised phone can reveal entire activist networks. It\u2019s worth emphasizing that to suppress organizing, the state doesn\u2019t necessarily need your deepest secrets, but things like where you\u2019ve been and who you talk to regularly.
Beyond the surveillance concerns, most of us have felt the alienating effect of the preoccupation with these apps. They can make organizing feel like a bureaucratic digital management job (while leaving a trail of \u201cSignal Intelligence\u201d for the authorities). An in-person meeting, when possible, is always going to be better \u2013 and often more secure \u2013 than starting yet another Signal group. The Covid pandemic has increased the alienation capitalism feeds on, including the retreat into apps, and it is essential to rebuild the culture of face-to-face meetings.
Radical action requires relationships. What ways of communicating would be best for building community, deepening our relationships to one another, and grounding us in a sense of place? Sometimes \u201clow tech\u201d methods such as phone trees can be better for all these things than impersonal digital messaging.
We should consider all these factors when using Signal, and critically discuss the political forces that produced this tool. We shouldn\u2019t let the discussion be guided by technologists or the elite activists of the nonprofit-industrial complex, but by what our movements need to build the community power that can topple imperialist institutions.
Further reading about Signal<\/strong>
\u2013<\/strong> Signal Configuration and Hardening Guide<\/a>: how to make Signal more secure than the default settings.
\u2013 Mobile Phone Security for Activists and Agitators<\/a>
\u2013 \u201cSignal is a government op<\/a>\u201d (2021)
\u2013 \u201cSignal Facing Collapse After CIA Cuts Funding<\/a>\u201d (2023)
\u2013 \u201cDefending Privacy in the Surveillance State and Fragmenting Internet<\/a>\u201d (2024)<\/div><\/div>
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